Stefan's Florilegium

Martin-Guerre-art

Martin-Guerre-art - 1/9/97

"A Peasant and his Imposter: The Story of Martin Guerre" by Lady Isabelle de
Foix.

NOTE: See also the files: France-msg, peasants-msg, Gaul-art.

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NOTICE -

This article was submitted to me by the author for inclusion in this set
of files, called Stefanšs Florilegium.

These files are available on the Internet at:
http://www.florilegium.org

Copyright to the contents of this file remains with the author.

While the author will likely give permission for this work to be
reprinted in SCA type publications, please check with the author first
or check for any permissions granted at the end of this file.

Thank you,
Mark S. Harris
AKA: Stefan li Rous
stefan@florilegium.org
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A PEASANT AND HIS IMPOSTER: THE STORY OF MARTIN GUERRE

by Lady Isabelle de Foix

The story of Martin Guerre, a sixteenth-century French Basque peasant,
isone of the most compelling stories to come down to us from the distant past.
It has inspired a play, two novels, an operetta, and two movies. Part of the
attraction to this story is the fact that it is a true story, and illustrates
perfectly the old maxim that "truth is stranger than fiction". Only a master
storyteller could have made this one up.

Martin Guerre was born Martin Daguerre in the e village of Hendaye, in the
French Basque country, in 1525. Two years later his father, Sanxi, moved the
family--his wife, his unmarried younger brother, Betrsantz (the name is the
Basque version of "Peter"), and two-year-old Martin--to the village of Artigat,
a village in the Pyrenees under the jurisdiction of Languedoc. Since Sanxi was
the heir to this father's house and lands, it is not clear why he left his
ancestral village of Hendaye. Basque custom forbade the sale of any part of an
heir's patrimony, and the oldest son inherited all of the father's property
after the father died. Martin was next in line to inherit the family property
after his father, since he was the only son in the family. He had four sisters,
all of them born after the relocation to Artigat. This custom was in stark
contrast to the French custom of dividing up inheritances among all of the sons,
no matter how many there were.

The Daguerres tried their best to adapt to the ways of their new neighbors.
They changed their family name to Guerre, and Betrisantz changed his name to
Pierre. They learned the local dialect of the traditional language of southern
France, Occitan (frequently referred to as Provencal) which was still the
everyday language of much of southern France. Occitan was banned by the French
government in 1539 in the interests of linguistic unity, but it was still being
spoken in isolated areas in the Pyrenees in the nineteenth century. Eleven years
after the move to Artigat, Martin Guerre was married to a girl from another
well-to-do peasant family, Bertrande de Rols. Bertrande brought a dowry of cash,
a vineyard, a bed with a feather pillows, sheets of linen and wool, and a bed
cover, among other items of value. The young couple followed Basque custom by
moving in with Martin's father--the young lord of the household always lived
with the elder lord and was subordinate to him. Martin and his bride were a few
months short of their fourteenth birthdays and were not mature enough to make
their own decisions in any case.

Alas, it turned out that Martin was impotent and could not comsumate his
marriage. The Guerre family kept hoping that this unfortunate state of affairs
could somehow be changed. Meanwhile Martin was growing up to be a very athletic
and active young man, adept in swordplay and acrobatics. Since an unconsummated
marriage could be dissolved after three years according to Catholic canon law,
Bertrande's family pressed for a separation. Bertrande later claimed that she
and Martin had been under the spell of a sorceress which prevented them from
consummating the marriage. After eight years of consulting village "wise women",
an old woman told them how to break the alleged spell. They had four masses sung
by the local priests, took the Eucharist, or communion, and ate special cakes.
After this, we are told, Bertrande finally conceived their first child. The baby
was a boy and was named Sanxi after his paternal grandfather.

This didn't end Martin's problems. He hated Artigat. He hated being a young
landlord under an old landlord. He tired of the old routines of peasant life,
the confines of fields of crops, property, and marriage. He began to think of
excuses to leave Artigat. He seriously thought of going off to join the king's
army, but Sanxi Guerre would not hear of it. Then a drastic situation developed.
In 1548, shortly after the birth of his son, Martin took some grain belonging to
his father without asking his permission. This probably had something to do with
the tension between the two heirs. In Basque society, no crime was more grave
than theft, especially if it was carried out within the family. Martin fled
Artigat, leaving his patrimony, his parents, his wife, and his son. He went to
Spain, learned Castillian, and served as a lackey in a Cardinal's palace before
becoming a soldier in the army of France's enemy, Spain. He saw action in a
Spanish siege on the city of Saint-Quentin in Picardy, a region in northern
France. On St. Lawrence's day, 1557, the Spanish army routed the French. Martin
was hit in the leg by a French arquebus, and the leg had to be amputated. No
more acrobatics for Martin Guerre.

For Bertrande de Rols Martin's disappearance was a catastrophe. She no
longer fit into the village social structure as a wife or a widow. Under
Catholic canon law, which was observed in France during this period, an
abandoned wife could not remarry without certain proof of her husband's death.
Then, in the summer of 1556, a man presented himself to her as the long-lost
Martin Guerre. At first the villagers believed that this man was actually Martin
Guerre, but in reality this man was Arnaud du Tilh from the village of Sajas, in
Gascony. He had been nicknamed "Pansette", " the belly" , because of his
lifestyle. He frequented the local taverns and perhaps the local brothels. He
was also a very clever man with a photographic memory, a born actor who could
play anyone he pleased--especially if they owned more than he did. Pansette
committed a series of petty thefts, then went to serve in the army of Henry II
in Picardy--which was exactly what where Martin Guerre was fighting for Spain.
Arnaud left Picardy for home around 1553. Upon arriving in a village near
Artigat, he met two friends of Martin Guerre's, who mistook him for the missing
peasant. It is not known where Arnaud lived for the next three years, but it is
certain that he spent these three years learning everything he could about
Martin, because he meant to establishing himself as the owner of the
considerable Guerre holdings. He was formulating a new identity and a new life
for himself.

At first, the villagers of Artigat believed that Pansette was indeed Martin
Guerre. They wanted the Basque heir, householder, husband and father back in the
village. True, he didn't look exactly like Martin, but these peasants had no
pictures of the man eight years departed, and Pansette bore a striking
resemblance to Martin Guerre. Arnaud's theatrical skills had the villagers
convinced that this was indeed the peasant who had left them eight years
previously--all of them except Bertrande de Rols. Very soon she realized that
this man was not her husband, but she was willing to help him "become" her
husband. For years she had yearned for another husband, who, unlike Martin
Guerre, could make her happy. This situation was her dream come true. With her
help, Pansette continued to rehearse the role of Martin Guerre. How long could
he perform on this stage?

The "new" Martin started to take commercial advantage of the Guerre
holdings, and, contrary to Basque custom, he sold some parcels of the Guerre
patrimony. Pierre Guerre was outraged. Then Pansette asked Pierre to give him
the accounts he had kept after the death of Martin's father. Pierre was the
administrator of his nephew's estate in his absence. Pansette suspected that
Pierre was withholding some of the inheritance. Pierre refused, whereas Pansette
brought suit against him. They eventually settled the dispute, but Pierre still
fumed, and he seriously began to wonder if this man was really his long-lost
nephew. After all, he had done something no decent Basque would do, sell off
some of his inheritance. If he was not a Basque, then, of course, he was not
Martin. How could he have forgotten so many Basque expressions? Pansette's
friends argued that Martin had only been two years old when his family left the
Basque country and had grown up in Languedoc. He had grown up speaking the local
dialect of the ancient language of southern France, Occitan, or Provencal, and
eight years was plenty of time to forget a few phrases in a foreign tongue,
especially one as notoriously difficult as Basque. This man showed no interest
in swordplay or acrobatics, of which Martin had been so fond. Pierre became
convinced that Arnaud was an imposter, but Bertrande, who was greatly respected
in Artigat for her "virtuous and honorable life", insisted that this man was
indeed her husband and refused to separate from him. How could Pierre prove his
case? In the summer of 1559, a soldier, passing through Artigat, saw Pansette
and told several villagers that he had seen Martin Guerre lose a leg at the
siege of Saint-Quentin and therefore the man living with Bertrande was an
imposter. However, Pierre had only heard about this by way of a rumor of the
meeting which spread around Artigat and its environs, and could not prove it was
anything more than hearsay. Shortly thereafter, a barn on the lands of the
seigneur of Lanoux burned to the ground and Pansette was charged with the crime.
The seneschal of Toulouse threw him into prison. The seigneur, Jean
d'Escorneboef, upon prompting from Pierre Guerre, claimed in his complaint that
the prisoner "had usurped the marriage bed of another man".

Many residents of Artigat simply would not believe that a woman of
Bertrande's character would lie about something this important. There has been
speculation that she was a Huguenot, and the Huguenots were precursors of the
Puritans. They also considered Pansette an upstanding householder of the
village. They also did not understand the Basque aversion to selling part of
one's patrimony. Consequently they did not understand why Pierre was so upset
about Pansette's sale of part of the Guerre patrimony. Pansette's impressive
dramatic skills attracted many supporters. Nonetheless, the dispute soon had all
of Artigat divided between Pensette's supporters and Pierre Guerre's supporters.
Jean d'Escorneboef's evidence concerning Pansette's alleged arson were flimsy
and Bertrande was able to secure his release from prison.

Pierre Guerre was determined to take Pansette to court, and in late 1559,
he acquired some new ammunition for his cause. Pansette was recognized as Arnaud
du Tilh by an innkeeper from a nearby diocese; he asked the innkeeper to stay
silent about this encounter. "Martin Guerre is dead", he told the innkeeper,
"and he has given me all of his goods". Someone else in the vicinity called him
Pansette; whereupon he fell out of character, giving the man two handkerchiefs
and asking him to take them to his brother, Jean du Tilh. Pierre got word of
these incidents, and now he could name the imposter: Arnaud du Tilh, a.k.a.
Pansette, a man of ill-repute from Gascony. Pierre used a little legal trickery
and falsely presented himself to the judge at Rieux as an agent of Bertrande de
Rols. In her name he got permission to have a formal inquiry opened about the
true identity of the man who called himself Martin Guerre and to have him
arrested as a man who was guilty of serious crimes who was likely to flee. No
sooner had Bertrande gotten Pansette out of prison in January of 1560 than
Pierre and several of his relatives seized him in Bertrande's name and got him
back in prison in Rieux. This started the trial in that town; Pansette was on
trial for his identity, and Bertrande was on trial for her honor. They informed
the judge that Bertrande was taking action against Arnaud against her will.
Pensette, Pierre Guerre, and Bertrande were all interviewed by the judge, who
then summoned 150 witnesses from the surrounding two dioceses. These witnesses
could only agree on one item; this was that the prisoner greeted them all by
name and reminded them of things they had done together years before. Some of
these witnesses were members of Arnaud du Tilh's family; these and others
insisted that he was Pansette, or at least not Martin Guerre. Martin's four
sisters, all born in Artigat, insisted that the prisoner was their brother. The
case was too confusing to this judge; he decided to declare Arnaud du Tilh
guilty of fraud and of abusing Bertrande de Rols, since the accused could appeal
to the Parliament of Toulouse. It was up to this Parliament as to who was to win
this was of identity and honor.

Jean Coras was the member of the Farliament of Toulouse charged to report
the proceedings, prepare a report on all of the arguments, and make a
recommendation of the sentence. Coras decided that he trusted blood relatives
above any of the other witnesses, but even here he ran into contradiction after
contradiction. Legal technicalities kept him from arriving at a decision, and he
became more and more frustrated. He rejected Pierre's argument about the
defendant's ignorance of Basque because Martin had only been two when he left
the Basque country, and it was entirely possible that he had never learned his
parents' native tongue. After eight years away from home, it was entirely
possible that he had forgotten what he did know. Coras distrusted Pierre Guerre
because of Pierre's admission that he had misrepresented himself as Bertrande's
agent before the judge at Rieux. Pierre also admitted to having participated in
an abortive conspiracy to kill Pansette. On the other hand, Coras trusted
Pansette because of his perfect recall of everything about Martin Guerre's life,
including the detailed and personal information given to him by Pierre. Then
Coras considered the evidence about Bertrande and her character. She had
repeatedly insisted that this man was her husband. Furthermore, he considered
Martin's sisters quite trustworthy, and they bore a physical resemblance to the
defendant. A principle of Roman law declared "that it was better to leave
unpunished a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one". Very well, then,
Coras decided, the Rieux verdict should be overturned.

The Criminal Chamber of the Parliament was now ready to the make its final
judgment of the case; they had decided to do what Coras recommended and let
Pansette go back to Artigat with Bertrande. It was then that a man hobbling on a
wooden leg appeared right outside of the building in which the trial was being
held. He said that his name was Martin Guerre. And so it was. Why did he decide
to come back to France after twelve years in Spain, leaving an enviable position
as a lay member of the military Order of Saint John of Jerusalem for his service
for Spain? Nobody really knows, but he may have heard about the trial in
Toulouse, and the judges had sent investigators to Spain to check Pansette's
testimony about his activities there. The Parliament made the returned peasant
prove that he was indeed Martin Guerre. Martin's sisters recognized their long-
lost brother. Finally, Bertrande conceded that the returned man was the one she
had been bound in matrimony to. Pansette was sentenced to be hanged for his
crimes. Bertrande de Rols was spared the same fate because of her gender. She
was forced to witness Pansette's execution shortly afterwards, and face life
with the heartless man who had deserted her.

Source: Natalie Zemon Davis, The Return of Martin Guerre, published by the
President and Fellows of Harvard Collage, 1983

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Copyright 1996, Patricia M. Hefner. Permission is given to use these articles in
any educational publication as long as you credit me for the authorship of the
article and send me a copy of the publication.

If this article is reprinted in a publication, I would appreciate a notice in
the publication that you found this article in the Florilegium. I would also
appreciate an email to myself, so that I can track which articles are being
reprinted. Thanks. -Stefan.

<the end>